sustain:if:able kiwi

fresh words and deeds: a theology of innovation

I preached in chapel today. The Gospel lectionary text was Luke 13:10-17. After the reading, I played Van Gogh Shadows by Luka Agnani and then spoke.

The video brings together two artists.

First, Vincent Van Gogh. Our entire trip through Europe during our Sabbatical was defined by Van Gogh. Our 13 year old was fascinated by the colours, the vibrancy, the subject matter, the fact he cut off his ear.

The second artist is Luka Agnani. A digital artist. Who takes Van Gogh – 13 paintings – and adds light, intensity, movement and people.

The result is that what is historic, Van Gogh paintings, is seen in fresh ways. Things we’d not noticed. People I’d not paid attention to. Insights I’d not been aware of.

Which helps me make sense of the Gospel reading. In Luke 13, the is something historic – Sabbath understanding, Torah, pattern of living. “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

And then there is the fact that, in the actions and words of Jesus, faith is seen is fresh ways. “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”

Jesus takes the historic – sabbath, Torah – and adds light, intensity, movement. And above all a focus on people. “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

Which also helps me make sense of some of my current research. I’m exploring new ways of church. How does what is historic, relate to the new, the contemporary world around us?

As part of the research, I’ve been re-reading the Basis of Union. As all Principals of Uniting Colleges do! 🙂 In particular wonderful phrase “fresh words and deeds.” It occurs at the end of Paragraph 11.

According to Davis McCaughey’s Commentary on the Basis of Union, you need to read paragraph 11, alongside paragraph 10.

Together. You read paragraph 10 and value of historic maps – of Scripture, of the witness of reformation fathers. You read alongside Para 11 and value the “faithful and scholarly interpreters” who serve the church by enabling it to stand “in relation to contemporary societies in ways which will help her to understand her own nature and mission.”

It’s such an interesting place to locate scholars- not in paragraph 10, with the historic, but in paragraph 11, with contemporary societies and fresh words and deeds.

So applying Paragraph 10 – we need historic maps – we need Van Gogh – we need the Old Testament, the Torah, the Law.

And applying Paragraph 11 – we need scholarly interpreters, who help us stand in relation to contemporary society.

Result is fresh words and deeds – fresh light, extra intensity, focus on people.

Which I hope is our experience – as faculty, as students – at Uniting College, as Flinders Department of Theology, as Adelaide College of Divinity.

We’re hold Paragraph 10 and 11 together. The historic – Scripture, tradition – and the new – reading the culture in mission. And the result?

May the Lord be confessed in fresh words and deeds.

Sin and evil in a liberal world

Words like sin and evil don’t always play well in a liberal world. In a world of tolerance, we like to assume the best of another. In a strength based paradigm, we like to focus on the positives of appreciative inquiry, as in this wonderful video.

I remember a class, in which I was told in no uncertain terms by a minsterial candidate that they didn’t believe in sin. It was an old-fashioned invention of the church, designed to encourage guilt in religion. It is a conversation that has continued to sit with me. What is the place of sin and evil in a contemporary, liberal world?

So interesting today to stumble across a thought piece in the Guardian by social media columnist, Paul Mason, reflecting on recent trends in social media. He is reflecting on some particular nasty occurrences on twitter. And writes:

Evil may be a medieval theological concept, but when it invades your interface with the rest of humanity – and confronts your unwilling mind with imagery designed to provoke disgust, fear and self-loathing – it is all too modern.

It reminded me of the conclusion by Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. He argues for a God of justice.

To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a warzone. Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward nonviolence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you will discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. (Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, p.304).

There is much, much, more to Volf. But it is a reminder that theology needs to take sin and evil seriously. A worthy topic for my Introduction to Theology class tomorrow perhaps.

theology as dinner party conversations

Today, I took a second step with the Master of Ministry Theology of Ministry Practice class.

The assumption of the topic is that each participant began ministry with a theology of ministry, a set of values and principles about ministry. Another assumption is that over time, they have collected experiences. Now, as they begin their Master of Ministry journey, is a time to re-theologise, to think again about their theology of ministry practice, to contemporise their reading, to clarify what their thesis topic really should be.

For this second class, each participant was invited to bring an experience, a moment of ministry that had left them thinking.

We began the class by sharing, around the room and online, using video-conferencing software. A rich set of stories, confronting, challenging, emerged.

It was time for the second step. Having shared, I invited them to consider themselves hosts of a dinner party. And to choose six guests whom they would like to have help them think through the question raised by the ministry experience. They could be alive or dead. But who would they like to have a conversation with.

I also noted that the average person speaks at about 100 words a minute. So one hour conversation with these six guests, would in fact be 6,000 words – the size of their essay. And like all conversations, these guests would probably argue ie engage in critical thinking.

Well, the lights went on and the energy went up in the room. Theology had been transformed. The participants had all sorts of interesting people they wanted to invite to their theological dinner party for conversation. People from the story they had shared, artists who would help them think differently, theologians in history, ministry practitioners they admired, saints who embody practices they value.

Which raised the inevitable question. How to get these voices into a theology essay? How to research and quote and cite?

Well, I said, that’s the third step. That’s for next gathering. How about I invite the librarian next time we meet and we ask them? We get them to guide us to the relevant databases, help us work out how to source information, whether books or journals or newspapers or people.

Lots of nods around the table. Lots of interest now in literature searching and proper use of bibliographies. Because research has taken another whole different shape.

It’s a dinner party conversation.

Adelaide mission-shaped ministry reunion

Tonight is an Adelaide reunion of mission-shaped ministry course participants.

We’re bringing together folk from the 2011 (45 participants meeting at Burnside Uniting) and 2012 (15 participants meeting at City Soul) courses. For reasons of community and coaching.

Regarding community, they’ve not met each other, yet both been through the same experiences. They’ve both experienced ecumenism, hospitality, community, interaction and input around fresh expressions, pioneering and mission-shaped ministry. So it will be fascinating to see what happens as people that are strangers, yet share a similar experience, and hopefully passion, mingle.

Regarding coaching, we’re also hoping to get some energy moving around the what next of coaching in community. The mission-shaped ministry course is not about information transfer, but about the invitation to participate in mission. So, since they were commissioned, since they left with a range of hopes and dreams, what has happened.

We’re not sure, so we’ve designed the following process. (more…)

Blended Educational Design Coordinator: we’re hiring

We’re hiring – a very exciting movement for us here at Uniting College.

Blended education is important for three reasons. First, access. It allows folk who can’t make face to face at set times to still be able to learn and participate. Second community. It allows more ways to engage and connect. It gives introverts time to think, it allows conversations to go deeper and spiral over time. Third, inter-connection. Image learning not only with face to face classmates, but with people across Australia. And the opposite. Imagine being in Ceduna or Townsville, yet able to engage with others both in a face to face class and at distance. It is this vision, for a richer, deeper, more accessible education and formation, that is encouraging us.

Blended Educational Design Coordinator
0.5 – 0.7 of full time (Fixed two year contract)

Uniting College for Leadership & Theology is seeking a person to provide leadership in the embedding of blended learning as a key mode of delivery. This will include resourcing, developing and supporting both faculty and students in the transition to fully blended theological and ministry education at both VET and Higher Education levels. An expertise in relevant technologies, including Moodle, websearching and video conferencing will be essential.

Applications must be received by the close of business on September 30, 2013 with desired commencement as soon as convenient.

Inquiries to
Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Principal
Uniting College, 34 Lipsett Terrace, Brooklyn Park, SA 5032
or steve dot taylor at flinders dot edu dot au

lone ranger: a post-colonial cowboys and indians

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for July, of Lone Ranger.

Lone Ranger
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

I confess to a sheltered childhood. Somehow a masked man and his cry of “Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!” passed me by. Which is strange, given that the Lone Ranger occupies a significant place in contemporary popular culture, including 18 novels, 2,956 radio episodes and 221 half-hour television episodes.

Come 2013, the Disney remake of “The Lone Ranger” is able to draw on an extensive cultural arsenal. But this is the 21st century. Thus the way we tell stories of cowboys and Indians is certainly open to a re-make.

Much of this film deals with stereotype. It begins with a child wandering a theme park. It is a clever plot device, inviting us to cross times and cultures through the eyes of a child.

As we do, we encounter a Western side show, read a sign that says “noble savage,” and find ourselves startled by the appearance of an elderly Tonto (Johnny Depp), with a story to share with us.

The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer as John Reid) is also battling with stereotype. He is a young city lawyer returning to the wild West. He is living in the shadow of his older brother (James Badge Dale as Dan Reid), a real Ranger living on the dry and dusty borders between railroad expansion and Comanche lands.

In storytelling one way to deal with stereotype is through character development. Take for instance the character of Tonto. He is introduced as Indian, imprisoned both in sideshow and in a railway carriage with convicted outlaw Butch Cassidy (William Fichtner). Rapidly he becomes mystical saviour, escaping prison, then restoring an injured Lone Ranger from a Butch Cassidy ambush in which his older brother is tortured and killed. As the plot twists, Tonto becomes village idiot, damaged as a child by the greed of Western imperialism.

All the time, the cultural gap is immense. In the original 1903‘s radio play, the character of Tonto was introduced so the Lone Ranger would have someone to talk. By 2013, Tonto is a window into a very different world. In Comanche culture, knowledge is treasure, exchange is mutual, while communication is primarily symbolic. In wild Western culture, knowledge is commodified, exchange is earned through gun and greed, while communication is primarily verbal.

Except that Tonto is Johnny Deep. Which cleverly makes obvious yet another stereotype, that of the audience. When we see Johnny Deep, we might be a child, but we are still expecting Captain Jack Sparrow, lawless buffoon from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Who are we really seeing? What is the real story?

The answer, in “The Lone Ranger,” is partnership, a growing, and increasingly equal discovery of difference between cowboy and Indian. As those very first radio shows used to announce: “a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice.”

All of which invites us to consider a final stereotype. The credits of Hollywood roll. And all the time Tonto walks. Away from the sideshow and into his land. Home for Comanche? Or empty desert, waiting to be colonised with greed by gun? One picture. Can it include two peoples. Or must cowboys always end up killing Indians?

Plant ahead: a spirituality of pea seeds

Today, a first sign of life. A check of the vegetable garden and the peas are up. I love growing peas. They emerge so strong and vigorous.

As I stood by the garden, it seemed deeply spiritual. I’d almost forgotten these fragile green signs of life. The last few weeks have been intensely demanding.

But that’s the way with seeds. There’s a spirituality that allows you to be other absorbed, be distracted, concentrate elsewhere. And all the time, things are germinating, softening, beginning to sprout.

A few months ago I did this at work. I planted some seeds. A lunch meeting, an email, a request for a conversation, a letter suggesting a possibility.

This week they sprouted. Still not strong enough to say more. But visible. A spirituality of planting. Plant ahead and wait, trustingly, hopefully, gratefully.

life to the full, plucking duilisc

I’ve been enjoying reading Columba: Pilgrim and Penitent, by Ian Bradley – slowly, devotionally – over the past few weeks. Columba is a pioneer, setting off around 563 AD in a small boat with a few friends, from Ireland, to land on the west coast of Scotland. A little venture, that, with hindsight is now considered one of the most significant events in the Christian history of Britain. Columba was to found a monastery, now called Iona, which over the centuries was hugely influential.

I’ve returned a number of times over the last weeks to one particular poem, attributed to Columba.

At times kneeling to the Heaven of my heart,
At times singing psalms;
At times contemplating the King of Heaven, Chief of the Holy Ones;
At times at work without compulsion, This would be delightful.
At times plucking duilisc from the rocks
At other times fishing
At times distributing food to the poor
At times in a hermitage.

It’s such a rich and varied life. A reminder that life to the fully emerges from full of a wide range of activities. For Columba, fishing, gathering food, mercy, solitude, work, prayer.

And what is duilisc, you might wonder? Apparently an edible aquatic plant.

a dynamic formation for ministry

Digital artist, Luca Agnani, takes Van Gogh’s paintings and brings them to digital life. He uses a mix of digital light and shadowing plus 3-d mapping, to provide a whole new way of viewing life.

It reminds me that life is dynamic rather than static.  It is easy to think of life, of faith, of theology, of Scripture, as a snapshot, a moment frozen in time.  The reality is that life is always about movement – the child running to the father, the sea a fluid wave movement, the streets full of people on the move.

Tomorrow, I am introducing a change to the candidate formation process at Uniting College. We will begin an exploration of practices, framed around a missional spirituality, and enhanced by storytelling – “the stories that you swap with other travellers” – about how these practices take shape in our lives.

So we’ve spent a lot of time as a team thinking about why we might do this.

Ministry formation could never prepare me for every situation I would find in life. Nor should it. Life is simply too fluid, too dynamic, to evolving, to ever make that possible.

Christian faith is dynamic – the practice of being sent, of prayer, of unforced rythyms of grace – are never static, but are always moving, shaped by those who walk toward us and away from us, those we welcome and those we let go, our experiences as we approach Scripture. Practices are our friends in this dynamic of life.

For those interested, the thirteen Van Gogh paintings are:

1. Fishing Boats on the Beach
2. Langlois Bridge at Arles, The
3. Farmhouse in Provence
4. White House at Night, The
5. Still Life
6. Evening The Watch (after Millet)
7. View of Saintes-Maries
8. Bedroom
9. Factories at Asnieres Seen
10. White House at Night, The
11. Restaurant
12. First Steps (after Millet)
13. Self-Portrait

how to pass theology

I kicked off Introduction to Christian Thought, a Semester 2 class today. Rather than the usual lecture mode, I suggested a more interactive, communal journey, in which I functioned not as the dispenser of knowledge, but as a guide in the communal doing of theology.

I offered them the following proposal:

• all content is online or in the library (alone we will read)
• theology is best done in community (together we will talk, laugh, disagree, grow over what we read)
• we will do theology not hear theology (together we will work on what concerns us and our world)

Or practically, in terms of our time (3 hours a week), a format as follows:

• 30 min catch up/ theological ‘show and tell’ from the week.
• 60 min ‘Doing Theology’ in-class project in small groups, with answer recorded on Moodle ‘wikispace’ for further interaction.
• coffee break
• 60 min Q&A based on the Moodle site readings/activities/resources. Students are expected to come to class having read the readings and study notes. The tutorial questions provided online will be used.

There was lots of energy at the end of the first week, so we’ll see how it goes. And how much reading gets done!

Leadership Formation as mission-shaped practices

This is a sign of some of our recent work at College – we’re shifting our formation day processes for candidates to focus around the practices of mission-shaped leadership. Here’s the email that went out yesterday to candidates and those in a Period of Discernment.

Our next Leadership Formation Day is August 5, 9:30 am – 3:30 pm. We will begin in S1.

As it is the start of a new semester, we will return to the vision for Uniting College. When Andrew Dutney introduced the new name of the College to Synod in 2009, he did it by reflecting on his experiences of backpacking around Europe. He described the backpacking habit of tearing out the chapter that related to the particular city you were in at the time. 

“It shocked me when I first saw it ….  I soon saw the good sense in what was going on. Why carry around 500 bound pages on the whole of Western Europe all day when you really only need the 20 pages on Antwerp? … It’s just extra weight on your shoulders.  In any case, the memories of the sights and experiences of a Belgian port city are carried more effectively in the stories that you swap with other travellers on the next train than in a few printed pages.”

Which he linked to the dominant image of Christian life in the Uniting Church of pilgrimage (full talk is here).

As a Uniting College team, we’ve sensed its time for another chapter in the pilgrimage of Leadership Formation Days. Prior to 2010, we met weekly on a Wednesday afternoon for chapel, community and colloquium input.

The chapter could be titled: Weekly and Wednesdays.

In the last few years we’ve met monthly on a Monday, all day. We’ve kept chapel and community and extended the colloquium input, with a range of topics – Spiritual gifts, Preamble, Conflict etc.

The chapter title could be titled: Monthly and topical.

As a team, we’ve discerned another chapter. On August 5, we will introduce this chapter. We will focus on 10 practices essential for mission-shaped spirituality. And ask each other what they mean for us as life-long learners and effective leaders in mission today. And swap stories as pilgrims on the way. (And we’ll keep chapel and community).

Perhaps with hindsight this chapter will be titled: Monthly and mission-shaped.

Why the Leap of faith is a myth

Where do great ideas come from? Research indicates it never comes a golden bullet, an inspired leap of faith. Vera John-Steiner interviewed over 70 living creative geniuses. She also analyzed the notebooks of 50 dead ones (including Tolstoy, Einstein, etc.) to look at their work habits.

She even planned to title her book “The Leap” because it would be about those giant flashes of inspiration that led to breakthrough ideas.

But she was completely wrong.

Eureka! moments turned out to be a myth.

There was no inspiration moment where a fully formed answer arrived.

Strokes of genius happened over time.

A great idea comes into the world by drips and drabs, false starts, and rough sketches. (From here)

Instead, creative inspiration involves writing down ideas as early as possible, keeping everything, giving things time and being willing to wrestle with ideas and search for clarity. And the refusal to expect that inspiration will deliver a finished product.

Perhaps the only golden bullet is buying a notebook/keeping a blog ie finding some place to store your work product.

Conversations at the table

I’m part of this event – Conversations at the table – August 24, 25.

Evangelism – what if everyone was sitting around the same table?

Hosted at The Village Well (Aldgate Church of Christ)

A partnership between Blackwood and Aldgate Churches of Christ, we’ve invited Mick Duncan and Steve Taylor to lead the conversation over 2 days reframing our understanding of what evangelism is and means for us as Christians in suburban Adelaide.

Hosted by Anthony Risson (Minister Aldgate Church of Christ and Mark Riessen (Coordinator of Mission & Community Engagement Churches of Christ SA/NT). Other conversation partners include Mark Butler (RAAF chaplain), Jeff May hospital (chaplain), Joanna Hubbard (MarionLife), Leigh Cunningham (MFS firefighter).

For more see here.

seeing formation: a theology of colour

Can we see formation?

In the Jesus Deck, the card for John 20:16 invites us to see the colours of formation. The risen Jesus appears to Mary. This, for Mary, is a life-changing moment. An encounter, a discovery, a recognition. It is a culmination of a number of years of discipleship, of questioning, following, pondering.

And this is visible. You hear it in her words “Master.”

But you also see it, in the Jesus Deck card, in the colours of the face of Mary. You see, around Jesus is a wheel of colour – hues of pinks, oranges, yellows. What is intriguing is that these same colours are in the face of Mary – she reflects, in hues of pinks, oranges, yellows, the colours of the Risen Jesus. This is deeply theological, a way of seeing the likeness of Christ.

But not Mary. Mary can’t see this. She can feel it. She can verbalise it. But we all know it is impossible to see our own faces. So only the viewer, the other, the outsider, can see the life change, can wonder at the colour.

This suggests a profoundly communal approach to formation. Mary needs us to see. Mary is blessed when we name back to her these colours, tell her what we are seeing. Alone we are limited. Together, all the senses are able to be appreciated.

This connects for me in two ways. First, personally, what are the colours currently in my face? Looking at the card, it struck me that I’ve worked too hard this week. Which directly effects the colours in my face. My being out of balance, my lack of formation, physically, becomes apparent. When I’m rested, when I’m relaxed, when I’ve laughed with friends, that shows – in colour, in my face. That’s interesting to ponder.

(Use of Skype for Formation Panels at Uniting College, to enable connection with remote candidates)

Second, this week at Uniting College has included formation panels. For our ministerial candidates, three times a year, for what amounts to a six year period, they meet with same panel of experienced ministers (for more here) Contemplating John 20:16, looking at the Jesus Deck, I realised that these processes are actually about seeing colour. The candidate can feel the impact of training for ministry. The candidate might verbalise this impact. But they can’t see it. It is the gift of the panel, however humanly, however falteringly, to try to name the colours back to the candidate. This is gift, to have what is happening in you and for you discerned and described.

This is deeply communal approach to formation. To reframe Martin Buber, this is not only the “I” of growth, or even the “I” to “I” of a person with a supervisor or mentor. It is an “I” to “we” encounter, a three way partnership between the Risen Jesus of John 20:16, the individual and some members of the body of Christ.

Third (thanks Lynne), this is missional. Anyone can look at the face of another, or in this case the face of Mary. Those inside and outside the community. The encounter with Christ is not only for Mary, not only for formation, it is part of the work of Christ made visible in our world.

Reframing Lindbeck, through time Christianity has developed a grammar for how the colours are described, named, affirmed. This introduces another layer of embodiment. The body in history has this grammar. Saints before (saints current, other candidates in formation, those in the formation panel, Christians and ministers in general) are also colour carriers. This is another dimension of mirroring. Mary can hear her colours described, Mary can also see colours in the lives of others.

(I realise as I write that this is all grist for the mill in preparation for my September presentation in Sydney – Living libraries: Embodiment and transformation in the context of e-learning)

For more on colours and formation see –
Last year I reflected on the colours of formation – to ask what colours are the processes of formation and the use of a colour wheel to capture the organic changes through life.